The Enlightenment of Bees

by Rachel Linden

  He is unmoved. “Sorry, Mia. No can do. Got to send it all to the boss. He likes to be kept informed about everything going on with the team, even the personal stuff. If it affects team dynamics, he wants to know.” He shrugs apologetically. “But don’t worry. He’s got a soft spot for romance. I think he’ll be cheering you on.”

  I give up. I signed up for this trip, after all, and agreed to all aspects of it, including the part about my private life becoming public fodder. Perhaps Lars Lindquist will enjoy watching the footage of our kiss from his Florida mansion late at night with a glass of brandy. Maybe it will warm his lonely heart. With a sigh of frustrated acquiescence, I turn my attention back to the list. I have more important things to think about than Lars seeing Kai and me kissing in the tea aisle.

  “Okay, the last thing we need is tea and sugar. A lot of it.” I stare at boxes of tea on the shelf. How many boxes of tea and how many bags of sugar will it take to help an entire refugee camp feel welcome in this new place? In the end I simply sweep the entire stack of Ceylon black tea boxes into my cart. Whatever we buy, I’m not sure it will be enough to make these people feel like anything more than strangers in a strange land.

  * * *

  An hour later we arrive back at the refugee camp. “Who wants to stay a little later and share some tea with the refugees?” I ask, hopping down from the van, full thermoses of tea in each hand. On the way back from Tesco we stopped by the hostel and, with the permission of the proprietor, made tea in the restaurant kitchen, filling all the carafes.

  Although everyone on our team is hungry and tired and just finished their shifts for the evening, they agree to stay another hour—even Winnie, who grumbles but gives in. We split into teams of two, one man and one woman each, and take a carafe, a bag of sugar, and a stack of disposable cups and plastic spoons. I can’t face Kai, not after our embarrassing spectacle in the tea aisle, so I partner with Abel. Each team circulates through the tents and the surrounding woods, offering tea to those we meet.

  I am astonished by the effect. People accept the tea gratefully, sipping it and closing their eyes in relief. One or two even tear up. They invite us to sit with them. Over cups of tea, they begin to tell us their names and countries and bits of their stories in broken English. One hour turns into two. The thermoses run low.

  At the tail end of the evening, at the far edge of the field, Abel and I stumble upon Maryam and Yousef. They are sitting together under a spreading oak tree, wrapped in thin fleece blankets from Ikea. The dew has fallen and the night is turning cool.

  We are down to the dregs of tea in the bottom of the carafe, but I manage to fill their cups by the light of a flashlight Abel carries. Yousef invites us to sit with them, and we do. I squeeze an additional inch of tea into two cups for Abel and me, emptying the carafes entirely.

  We sit together, sipping our lukewarm tea, the flashlight casting a mellow glow around their tiny makeshift campsite. I offer Maryam the sugar, and her face breaks into a smile as she helps herself to two heaping spoonfuls.

  “She likes sweets,” Yousef says with a fond smile.

  “You travel alone?” Abel asks.

  Yousef nods, dropping his eyes. “We left Iraq when Daesh overran our home city of Qaraqosh. We went first to Turkey and then to Greece.”

  I frown, recalling Delphine telling me that Daesh is another name for the radical militant group Islamic State. I cannot imagine what that would be like, to watch militant fanatics overrun your home.

  “And what of the rest of your family?” Abel asks gently, his dark eyes intent on the siblings in the dim glow of the flashlight.

  “Our father was killed by Daesh,” Yousef says, his mouth twisting around the word. “He was strung up in front of his shop because he would not convert. We are members of the Chaldean Catholic community and therefore persecuted by the extremists. And our mother . . .” He stops, swallows hard. “Our mother died when she saw his body. A massive stroke in her brain. She fell down in the street and did not wake up. Three weeks she lived, but she never opened her eyes again.”

  Maryam hides her face with her hands. She coughs, a hoarse bark that sounds painful. Her shoulders shake. Yousef puts his arm around her, comforting her. To my surprise, Maryam reaches out and grasps my hand, her head still bowed. Her fingers are strong, her skin dry and a little rough. I can feel a tremor through her fingertips, suppressed grief and sadness. I grip her hand in mine and simply sit with them, bearing witness to their grief. I don’t know what to say to make it better, but perhaps this is what they need right now, someone to hear their story, someone to assure them that they are seen, that their sorrow is not forgotten.

  Abel leans forward and grips Yousef’s arm. “You are not alone, brother,” he says firmly. “I know this pain. I, too, lost my family—my mother, my father, and my older sister. It feels like the end of your heart, the end of life itself.”

  Yousef nods, his shoulders slumped with despair. “I do not know how to go on,” he says. “We have only our sister now in Sweden. She is all we have left.”

  Abel gazes intently at Yousef. “You will see your parents again, brother,” he says gently. “Death is not the end.”

  The sorrow is palpable, like steam in the air. I feel myself tearing up in solidarity, touched by the raw power of their grief. After a few moments, Yousef looks up and wipes his eyes, sniffing. In the weak yellow glow of the flashlight, I glimpse the sheen of tears on his cheeks.

  “You are right,” he says to Abel. “This is not the end.”

  Abel nods. “You must be strong,” he says. “It will take great courage to build a new life in Sweden. Your sister needs you. Make your father and your mother proud.”

  Yousef takes a deep breath and nods again. He meets Abel’s eyes, then mine, and straightens his shoulders. “I will try,” he says solemnly.

  Maryam untangles her fingers from mine and turns to him, her eyes shining when she gazes at her brother. It is clear that he is her protector and that she adores him.

  “I will do it for Maryam,” Yousef says. “So she can start over, a new life.”

  Abel nods and raises his cup. “To a new life for you both,” he says. We drink the last drops of tea.

  A few minutes later we gather the cups and leave Yousef and Maryam for the night. It is growing late. We walk back to the van silently, picking our way carefully through the clods of dirt and trash that litter the ground.

  “I didn’t know about your family,” I say haltingly. “I’m so sorry.” I stop, unable to come up with any other words. What can I say, I who have known only comfort and safety and peace. I have no window into this magnitude of suffering, no way to comprehend what they have experienced. I’m both grateful and a little embarrassed by my privilege and good fortune.

  “It was long ago,” Abel says, his voice placing the loss far in the past. “Those I lost have been gone many years. I remember them and miss them still, but the years soften the pain. Life continues, and we must go on too.” He looks at me steadily in the soft summer darkness, the outline of his face just visible. “I honor their memory with my life now, and I know we will meet again one day.”

  I walk quietly beside him back to the van. I don’t know what to say. Such grief and such hope combined—it leaves me breathless. It breaks my heart.

  Chapter 34

  A few days later Delphine sends me on a quick errand midway through the busy morning. “Get baby wipes, and plenty of them,” she instructs. “And tell Szilvia we need cough medicine.”

  I hurry out into the warm sunlight, scanning the camp, looking for Szilvia’s brassy blonde head. I’m glad to be out of the stifling confines of the tent. Already the day is growing hot. It’s going to be sweltering by afternoon. Breathing deeply the smell of mud tinged with human waste from the Porta-Potties, I finally spy Szilvia standing at the back of a van of supplies that arrived this morning from a Lutheran aid group in Munich.

  “Put those in the tent. Hurry, hurry. The people are hungr
y,” she calls loudly, flapping her hands at a few new Hungarian university student volunteers as they unload crates of fruit from the van.

  Every day or so a new group or organization will show up with a van or car or truck loaded with donated supplies. Some just deliver their goods and leave, but a few open up their own temporary stations, beckoning everyone in the camp to come get whatever they are offering—free haircuts and shaves, a mobile phone charging station so the refugees can stay in contact with family back home or connect with those they are hoping to join in other parts of Europe. Just this morning a thin Hungarian man with a drooping mustache rode up on a bicycle and gave out fresh doughnuts from a wooden box attached to the back of his bike, handing them to refugees, volunteers, and police alike.

  I stretch and look around me for a moment. The entire camp is a chaotic scene of goodwill and disorganization. Szilvia does her best to keep things at least somewhat organized, but the camp is makeshift, thrown together out of necessity. There is no authoritative source of information, and so rumors fly from tent to tent, handed down after phone calls to relatives in Sweden or Germany who try to keep abreast of the fluctuating European position on the refugee crisis. Every day it seems there is some new stance, some new rule or regulation from Hungary and the other nations in the European Union. No one knows what will happen next.

  This morning a bus left the camp carrying some of the waiting refugees to the Austrian border. From there they can travel to their intended destinations, claiming asylum in Denmark, Sweden, or Germany. The Hungarian government sends a bus or two every day or so, but each bus could be the last. The borders could close without warning. The instability makes people nervous. They don’t want to sit and wait for a bus; they are desperate to reach a place of safety and permanence.

  “When you finish with the fruit, unload the rest of this into the clothing tent. Go, go . . . ,” Szilvia calls to the volunteers as they troop toward the food tent, lugging crates.

  I head toward Szilvia, keeping my eye out for Kai. We haven’t talked since our kiss in Tesco five days ago. There’s been no opportunity to be alone, but I am always aware of him, homing in on his presence around the camp even while I am busy doing other things. We’re around one another constantly but never in private. I don’t know what I would say if I did manage to steal a moment alone with him. My heart still aches when I think of Ethan, but it leaps like it’s been electrocuted when I catch a glimpse of Kai.

  As I head toward Szilvia, I notice Rosie standing in the dirt road a few yards away from the German van, talking to a man with straight blond hair whose back is to me. My gaze drifts past them and then snaps back to the man.

  There is something familiar about him, the set of his shoulders in a light blue dress shirt, the way he leans toward Rosie as he talks, as though he knows her well. I stop and squint. It can’t be. But then Rosie points toward me, and he turns. Even before I see his face I know. It’s Ethan.

  * * *

  “Mia!” Ethan comes toward me, hands outstretched, as though we are long-lost friends. He stops in front of me, close enough to touch. His face is hesitant, hopeful. He sees my stunned expression and lets his hands drop. “Mia,” he says again, his gaze searching mine, as though looking for something, some reassurance or sign.

  “Ethan?” Standing in the middle of the field, I blink and blink again, shaking my head, dumbfounded. What is happening? Ethan is standing in front of me in a potato field turned refugee camp in rural Hungary. Ethan, who never wanted to venture far from home, who doesn’t, to the best of my knowledge, even have a passport.

  “What are you doing here?” I stammer. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rosie standing in the lane watching us narrowly, her head cocked at an attentive angle. Beyond her Kai comes out of the food tent and heads toward the German van. He stops and looks toward us, his expression curious. Jake trots over and stands next to Rosie, video camera going. I wince, imagining Lars watching footage of this most interesting twist in his Caritas team dynamics.

  “Mia, I came for you.” Ethan’s tone is gentle, almost pleading. I tear my attention from our audience and meet his eyes, those beautiful, clear blue eyes. I see a flicker of uncertainty in his gaze. He doesn’t know how I’ll react to his being here. For that matter, neither do I. I just stare at him in shock.

  Taking my silence as some sort of assent, he gives me a sweet, pleading look. “Mia, I blew it,” he says. “I never should have let you go. I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as you left Gas Works Park that day, but I didn’t know what to do. You said you were going on this trip and you sounded so sure. I was confused. But I’m not confused now. Please, give me a chance to explain.” He stops, waiting for my response, his expression hopeful.

  I stare hard at the ground, focusing on a clod of dirt, thoughts racing. I turn it over with the toe of my sneaker and find an empty blister pack of pills underneath. All I can taste is green grass and chai tea. I don’t know what to say. Why has he waited so long? Why has he come now, when my heart has just begun to heal, when my pulse quickens at the sound of a different voice?

  My head is whirling with this unexpected turn of events. And my heart? My heart is torn. If I’m honest, this is what I wanted, what I secretly hoped would happen. I desperately longed for Ethan to realize his mistake and come back to me. But that was before—before India, before Kai, before I embarked on this alternate life. I was just starting to feel alive again. I shoot Ethan a perplexed look. In the midst of my myriad questions lies a kernel of curiosity. He has crossed a continent and an ocean to come for me. I have to at least hear him out.

  “I can’t leave my shift,” I say, softening just a little. “I volunteer at the medical station. I’ll meet you at the food tent about one.”

  He looks instantly relieved. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

  A dozen questions are buzzing around in my brain, as insistent and frantic as yellow jackets, but I need a little time to calm down and reorient before I say or do anything more.

  “I’ll see you at lunch,” I say, then I turn and walk toward the medical tent, leaving him standing in the warm morning sun.

  Chapter 35

  At lunchtime we sit together, Ethan and I, on a little mound of flattened dry grass at the edge of the field. If I crane my neck, I can catch a glimpse of the rest of my team eating lunch beside the food tent. Ethan sits next to me, elbows on his knees, wearing skinny jeans and his favorite button-down shirt from Brooks Brothers. He looks incongruous sitting here in the dirt.

  Someone has turned on a small radio in the food tent, and it’s playing plaintive love songs from the nineties, sung in Hungarian. The current selection is a cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” The irony is not lost on either of us.

  Ethan gives me a bashful smile. “She’s reading my mind,” he says.

  I don’t respond. I crunch a slice of cucumber, ravenous from my busy morning, and stare down the lane at the police vehicles and beyond them, the media vans. The reporters are still camped out there, covering the refugee crisis by venturing every so often into the camp to interview a refugee or take some footage. Otherwise they seem to loiter near their trucks waiting for something exciting to happen.

  “Mia, I made the biggest mistake of my life when I let you go.” Ethan gazes at me, his expression forthright and earnest. In the sunlight his hair gleams like gold. “It took me awhile to realize it, but when I did, I knew I had to come find you.”

  “How did you find me?” I ask, peeling an orange, slipping my fingernail under the dimpled rind.

  “The night we broke up you mentioned the Humanitas Foundation, so I contacted them and told them the whole story. I sweet-talked Stella into at least talking to Lars Lindquist about us. Luckily, he seems to have a soft spot for lost love, because he agreed to help me come find you.”

  “You sweet-talked Stella? Lars is in on this?” I’m boggled by these unexpected revelations. “Okay, so you tracked me down, but why now?” I smear a tr
iangle of cheese between two halves of a roll and take a bite.

  Ethan doesn’t touch his lunch. He sips from a bottle of water and keeps his attention solely on me. I can’t remember the last time I had his undivided attention, other than when he was breaking up with me, which definitely doesn’t count. Now that I am lost to him, he is fully present, fully engaged. Go figure.

  “I saw a photo on Instagram of you and that guy.” He nods to the food tent where Team Caritas sits. “The one with the man bun.”

  “Kai,” I interrupt him. “His name is Kai.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Ethan makes a slight gesture of dismissal, wiping Kai from the conversation. “I saw the photo of you two together, and I realized that I’d been an idiot. You’re the most selfless, loyal, kind woman I’ve ever met. You’re smart and beautiful. I knew I couldn’t let you slip away. I had to come tell you in person, to say that I’m sorry and to ask you to give me another chance.”

  I stare at Ethan, the hank of blond hair falling over his forehead, that clean-cut, boyishly handsome face. He’ll be handsome when he’s seventy, like Albert, a heartbreaker with twinkling eyes. I feel my heart soften, ache, with his words. He is my first love. He broke my heart. And now he’s asking for a second chance. Can I give it to him? Should I?

  From the food tent, I can hear Rosie singing along to the Hungarian version of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” on the radio, and catch the low timbre of Kai’s voice talking to someone. This is all so confusing.

  “Did you see Nana Alice’s comment on Instagram?” I ask.

  Ethan looks puzzled. “Nana Alice is on Instagram?”

  “Somewhat dangerously,” I tell him dryly. So he didn’t see her comment about me liking Kai. I take a sip of water and ask the question that’s been on my mind since I first glimpsed Ethan standing with Rosie in the lane. “How are you even here? Did you finally get a passport, after all these years of us talking about it?”